Piramal Enterprises acquires five OTC Brands

The consumer products division of Piramal Enterprises Ltd has acquired trademark rights for five over-the-counter (OTC) drugs for India from Organon India Pvt. Ltd and MSD BV, Indian subsidiaries of US based pharmaceutical leader Merck and Co, for a consideration of Rs.92 crore.

The acquisition includes the brands Naturolax, Lactobacil and Farizym, which Piramal Enterprises intends to continue in the OTC business in the gastro-intestinal segment. The Indian OTC Market is approximately Rs. 15,000 crore in size and grew 13-14% in 2014. Last month, Piramal Enterprises had acquired 100% stake in Little India, the country’s oldest baby care products brand, for an undisclosed amount.

Piramal Enterprises consumer division owns popular brands such as Lacto Calamine Lotion, Caladryl, antacid brand Polycrol and headache drug Saridon. The company entered the OTC market with the acquisition of Saridon from Roche Holding AG and Lacto Calamine from Duphar Interfran Ltd in the early 1990s. They were followed up by joint venture with Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc. and Boots Plc. to get their OTC range to India.

Piramal entry into pharmaceuticals came around 1988 when the company acquired Nicholas Laboratories Ltd. for Rs. 1.6 crore at a time when most multinational drug makers were exiting India. 

Wipro buys Viteos

Wipro Ltd. has agreed to buy Viteos Group, a securities processing and fund administration services provider, for $130 Million in an effort to expand its portfolio of services to financial companies.

The 12 year old New Jersey based Viteos provides services including processing, reconciliation of trade, settlements and customer data across asset classes and currencies for investment banking clients in the US, Europe and Asia. Wipro plans to use Viteos licensing platform to offer services to buy side companies, a term used by investment bankers to refer to institutions that buy investment services such as mutual funds, pension funds and insurers.

Wipro, India’s third largest software exporter already offers many of these solutions to its clients on the sell side of capital markets. They in turn, sell investment services to asset management companies. Viteos, which generated $26.5 Million in revenue in the year ended March with roughly 400 employees, will retain its brand identity to further strengthen its presence among existing clients.

The acquisition reflects a broader shift in India’s software outsourcing industry towards building an arsenal of intellectual property led high margin software platforms rather than relying on an army of engineers to offer technology solutions to clients. Wipro and Infosys have also been investing heavily in startups to build new age technology solutions for clients.

Panasonic buys Hussmann

Japanese electronics maker Panasonic Corp. is buying Bridgeton based refrigeration firm Hussmann for $1.5 Billion in a deal. It will leverage Panasonic technology and help it break into the US food distribution industry.

Panasonic like several Japanese peers has been moving away from unprofitable smartphones and plasma television sets, focusing instead on higher margin products, such as high end cold storage, LED lighting and remote monitoring. Panasonic will buy full control of Hussmann from private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and industrial group Ingersoll Rand.

Panasonic has said it is targeting 2.5 trillion yen of sales from its offerings for businesses rather than consumers, in 2018, 300 Billion of which will come from food distribution. To date, it has mostly been present in Asia, and has sought ways to break into the United States, the industry largest market. Hussmann, which will become a fully owned subsidiary of Panasonic, has a leading share in the US market, manufacturing and maintaining refrigerated and freezer display cases.

Careers360 acquires Entrancecorner.com

Education service provider Careers360 has acquired Delhi-based Education start-up Entrancecorner.com which prepares candidates for entrance seats. This is Careers360 second acquisition in December. Earlier this month, the company has acquired online enrolment startup NoPaperForms.

Entrancecorner.com acquisition will help Careers360 expand its reach and deliver better value to all stakeholders. Entrancecorner.com is a lead student portal in India despite facing competition from some well-funded portals. Entrancecorner.com entire team will move to a new office and operate under the Careers360 management. Careers360 in a short span has established itself for its credibility, reach and audiences.

Entrancecorner.com helps students at different phases of their academic career: explore different careers options, help them make informed career decisions as well as equip them with resources to realize their career choice. It also provides latest news and updates about careers and exams, guidance from experts in different careers, exam preparation material, and social platform to connect with similar students, free test series, admissions and counseling details etc.

Last year, Careers360 raised capital from five angel investors for expanding its business of helping students take career decisions. Its investors include Ranjan Pai venture capitalist Mahesh Murthy and education company Career Launcher founder Satya Narayanan R. 

PepperTap acquires Jiffstore

The Hyperlocal Delivery service provider PepperTap (Nuvo Logistics Pvt. Ltd) has acquired smaller delivery start-up Jiffstore for an undisclosed amount through cash and stock. Nuvo Logistics, which also runs a reverse logistics business said that it plans to spin off the fast growing Hyperlocal business into a new entity by February-March. Reverse Logistics is the process of handling returns or goods rejected by customers.

Nuvo works with clients such as Snapdeal, Paytm and Shopclues. Nuvo fulfills almost 10,000-12,000 orders a day and is operational across 30 cities. With this move, the company is trying to avoid passing on the valuation of the reverse logistics a profitable entity to the investors who are putting in money specifically for the Hyperlocal business. The reverse logistics business currently makes Rs. 4 Crore annual profit.

PepperTap acquisition of Jiffstore is largely to get the company team and expand its presence in Bengaluru, where Jiffstore has been operating for more than two years. Jiffstore has been operating for more than two years. Jiffstore employs close to 40 people, who are slated to join PepperTap Gurgaon and Bengaluru offices. Jiffstore had last raised an undisclosed amount from Unitus Seed Fund and Times Internet Ltd. in June.

PepperTap earns more than 90% of its revenue from the commissions it earns from shops. The rests comes from the delivery cost. It charges consumers for orders below a minimum delivery benchmark. Recently, it also started marketing activities for packaged consumer goods companies by means of banner advertisements and exclusive launches.

Spencer acquires MeraGrocer.com

Retail Chain Spencer Retail Ltd, has acquired Gurgaon based Omnipresent Retail India Pvt. Ltd, which runs online grocery business MeraGrocer.com to enter the e-commerce space. The online grocery brand, which sold a gross merchandise value (GMV) worth Rs.5 Crore a year, caters to Gurgaon and Delhi. The acquisition will provide Spencer an omnichannel space.

Spencer would provide its entire basket of retail products through its online platform, starting with grocery and food and later extending it to non-food items. At present, Spencer Retail has presence in 35 cities with 122 stores across India. There are three more stores in the pipeline which will be added by March 2016. Spencer has plans to utilize the existing logistics and infrastructure, though it also plans to tie up with delivery companies for resources.

Meragrocer.com has been in operations from the end of 2014, and its customers can order through a mobile-app, IVR and pay either through an e-wallet or cash-on-delivery. Spencer expects to complete the acquisition and integration process in the next one or two month. At present there are close to 20 employees, all of whom will be absorbed in Spencer.

Thinkcell acquires Testfunda.com

Hyderabad based Thinkcell Learning Solutions Pvt. Ltd (formerly Gateforum Educational Services Pvt. Ltd) has acquired Mumbai based Enabilon Learning Pvt. Ltd, which offers test preparation packages through Testfunda.com for an undisclosed amount.

Testfunda.com focuses on the MBA and bank test prep market. The platform claims to have over 6 lakh registered users and 250 institutional partners. Earlier this month, Thinkcell acquired the YUKTI brand to focus on the 12^th board exams and engineering and medical entrance exams like JEE, MHT-CET and AIPMT.

With the acquisition of Testfunda.com, Thinkcell has now been structured into four verticals – Gateforum for GATE Preparation, YUKTI for preparing students from 8-12 science division for JEE and Medical entrance, Logiquest (Kaplan Certified Education Partner) for GRE, GMAT, SAT, TOEFL, and USMLE, and Testfunda.com for online MBA and bank test-prep market. Thinkcell is investing Rs 30 crore over two years for diversification including acquisitions. Last year, private equity firm ASK Pravi Capital Advisors had acquired a majority stake in Thinkcell.

With an increasing number of online learning startups, the market has started to see signs of consolidation. Several M&A have happened in the space over the last few months. In April, online test platform Toppr had acquired EasyPrep, an online entrance exam preparation platform. Same month, Singapore based XSEED Education Pte acquired online learning management business of Pleolabs.

Careers360 acquires NoPaperForms

Maheshwer Peri-promoted Careers360, an education service provider acquired Mumbai based education start-up NoPaperForms for an undisclosed amount. NoPaperForms is a four year old enrolment management platform that helps colleges and universities manage their online admission process.

The acquisition will help Careers360 augment and strengthen its B2B clientele offering and help institutes spend smartly on digital media. Currently, NoPaperForms is managing more than 200,000 applications for 30+ clients that include top B-schools and universities. With their market reach coupled with investments in technology and product they hope to deploy the platform in 500 plus college within the next 2-3 years.

Internet penetration growing, the pace of online admission will grow further and the company under Careers360 will tap the market better. Last year, Careers360 raised capital from five angel investors for expanding its business of helping students take career decisions. Careers360 investors include Ranjan Pai, Venture Capitalist Mahesh Murthy and education company Career Launcher founder Satya Narayanan R.

MockBank acqui-hires Litoro

MockBank Learning Pvt. Ltd, a test preparation start-up for government jobs has acquired Vijayawada based web and mobile services company Litoro Tech Solutions Pvt. Ltd.  The purchase is part of a so-called acqui-hire strategy in which one company buys another to gain access to the target talent pool rather than its products and services.

Litoro was founded in 2012. In September, MockBank raised $400,000 in a seed round of funding led by Blume Ventures. Singapore based angel fund Mercatus Capital and angel investors such as SlideShare co-founder Amit Ranjan and Bain and Co. India chairman Srivatsan Rajan also participated in the round.

MockBank focuses on jobs related to the banking financial services and insurance sector, including public sector banks, Reserve Bank of India and Life Insurance Corporation of India. MockBank also plans to explore categories like civil and judicial services, engineering and teaching. The company claims to have more than 100,000 users over 5,000 among them being paying customers. MockBank charges customers between Rs. 150 and Rs. 6000 depending on the services.

India has become the largest e-learning market after the US, and the sector is projected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 17.4% between 2013 and 2018, twice as fast as the global average. At least 73 companies in the online education segment have raised institutional capital this year. About $63 Million have been pumped into this sector since 2014, while Simplilearn which has raised $28 Million, and Toppr with about $12.2 Million.

Paytm Acquires Near.in

Mobile wallet and e-commerce company Paytm has bought home service marketplace Near.in for an undisclosed amount. The move is part of its increasing focus on online to offline (O2O) and Hyperlocal commerce. The company expects more than half of its sales to come from the Hyperlocal channel by 2016.

Near.in (run by Thumbspot Inc.), which connects users with local businesses for home services through a marketplace app, was founded in December 2014. It last raised a seed funding of $300,000 by a group of Angel investors. Other than this there are investors from Healthkart, SAP Labs, and Aspiring Minds. Near has a significant network of local service providers in place and a stellar team leading it.

Paytm is India’s largest mobile commerce platform. With its mobile first strategy, Paytm does more than $100 Million transactions of various digital and physical goods every month. Paytm Wallet is India’s dominant mobile Paytm service platform. Based in Delhi-NCR, its investors include Ant Financials (AliPay), SAIF partners, Sapphire Venture and Silicon Valley Bank.

The company also plans to venture into travel with Hotel, air and rail ticket bookings in partnership with online travel companies such as Goibibo and Yatra and budget accommodation marketplaces OYO Rooms and ZO Rooms. The company already sells bus tickets. Apart from tying up with online travel partners, the company will also allow offline travel agents to list on its platform.

Oyo Rooms may buy Zo Rooms

Budget Hotel site Oyo Rooms (Oravel Stays Pvt. Ltd) has expressed interest in buying smaller rival Zo Rooms, which is scrambling to raise a fresh round of funds in order to avoid being sold. The overture from Oyo Rooms follows the entry of large online travel firms MakeMyTrip, Yatra Online Pvt. Ltd and Goibibo into the budget hotel segment.

Though Zo Rooms, run by Zostel Hospitality Pvt. Ltd is currently in conversations with at least two investors for a fresh funding round, it faces an uphill task as its biggest investor; Tiger Global Management has decided to go slow on writing large cheques for the smaller companies in its portfolio. Zo raised roughly $35 Million from Tiger and Orios Management this year.

Oyo Rooms is the early market leader among budget hotels, having raised $100 Million from Japan Softbank Group and others in August. Budget hotel aggregators were supposed to be the next big thing for investors and entrepreneurs, but as with most other new, unproven business such as food tech, investors and entrepreneurs seem to have overestimated the potential of the business.

Budget hotel launches by online travel agencies has only made investors in hotel startups more cautious. MakeMyTrip, Yatra and Goibibo launched their budget hotel businesses, putting them in direct competition with Oyo and Zo and potentially triggering consolidation among startups. The online travel firms have already delisted Oyo and Zo from their platforms, indicating their ambition to build a budget hotels business independently. 

Wipro buys German Firm Cellent

Wipro Ltd has bought Cellent AG, a German Technology company that implements and maintains SAP (systems applications and products) software for clients in automobile and manufacturing segments, for $78 Million. The purchase is the latest move by India’s third largest software firm to scale up its business in the DACH or Germany, Austria and Switzerland of Western Europe.

This is Bengaluru based Wipro second purchase in the region this year. It bought Denmark based Designit for $95 Million in July to strengthen its presence in the digital space. Cellent is a well-established player with marquee customers, a well-known brand and has strong local talent. Cellent client include marquee car maker Daimler AG and lens maker Carl Zeiss AG and SAP is a business software used to run basic functions in finance, human resources and manufacturing.

Wipro bought Cellent from its parent firm, German bank Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg. Wipro will also see Cellent’s more than 800 consultants join the firm even as it expects to close the acquisition by the fourth quarter of 2015-16. Many buyouts by homegrown information technology firm this year are in the SAP space. Earlier this year, Infosys paid $200 Million to buy automation technology provider Panaya.

Mid-tier Bengaluru based software exported Mindtree bought UK based Bluefin Solutions, which helps migrate SAP installed software, like ERP to the cloud. Wipro 8000 strong manufacturing and hi-tech segment is the second largest industry vertical, behind banking and finance. 

Quikr acquires RealtyCompass

Online classifieds website Quikr India Pvt. Ltd acquired real estate analytics firm Blitzkrieg Technology Pvt. Ltd which operates under the name RealtyCompass for an undisclosed sum. This is the second acquisition by the company in the sector. It acquired Indian Realty Exchange (IRX) an aggregator of real estate agents.

It also made a strategic investment in AN Virtual world Tech Ltd, a hyper-local search engine providing street views. The latest acquisition will help QuikrHomes access technology built by RealtyCompass that helps consumers and investors in their decision making process by providing builder ratings and detailed project analysis. As part of its growth strategy, Quikr has been focusing on automobiles, jobs, services and customer to customer sales.

The size of Real estate sector is expected to reach $853 Billion by 2028 and its contribution to India’s gross domestic product will be 13%. While Quikr competes with Naspers backed OLX in the classified business, its competitors in the real estate sector are Housing.com, PropTiger Realty India Pvt. Ltd, Magicbricks Realty Services Ltd and 99 Acres.

Softbank backed Housing.com which started off as a listing website and now enables users to buy and sell properties online, acquired risk assessment company Realty Business Intelligence for Rs. 10 Crore in cash in June and Indian Real Estate Forum in March. PropTiger also acquired Makaan.com in April. QuikrHomes currently connects customers from more than 1000 cities and towns across India and it helps conclude more than 200,000 transactions a month.

Quikr to acquire CommonFloor

Online classified portal Quikr India Pvt. Ltd is in the final stage of discussions to buy real estate portal CommonFloor.com in a share swap deal. The valuation is expected to be in the range of $120 Million to $200 Million.

CommonFloor owned by maxHeap Technologies, in January raised an undisclosed amount from Google Inc. venture arm Google Capital in a deal that valued the company at around $200 Million. The other investor in CommonFloor is Accel Partners. Tiger Global, which has over the past one year, invested in scores of big and small Indian Startups is currently in the process of pulling back from big ticket investments.

Tiger Global is re-allocating its investments to stronger companies in its portfolio, including Quikr which is in process of realigning its business, creating new business verticals across real estates, automobiles and jobs, among others. Quikr has so far raised $346 Million from investors such as Investment AB Kinnevik Tiger Global, Steadview Capital Management and Matrix Partners India.

CommonFloor has so far raised more than $60 Million from Accel Partners, Tiger Global and Google Capital over multiple rounds. According to some investors, the sector saw a churn after Softbank backed Housing.com owned by Locon Solutions Pvt. Ltd, raised large amount of Capital and invested heavily in marketing and advertising, pushing other companies to follow suit.